Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Brandied Fruits
Ingredients
Directions
Select ripe, defect-free fruits and wipe them clean.
Immerse fruits in saleratus water briefly to remove down, then pierce each fruit with a sharp needle.
Simmer fruits in the ley for 5 minutes, then transfer to cold water.
Place fruits in a large vessel of boiling water and reduce heat to cool gradually for 2 hours.
Bring the vessel back to a boil, then carefully remove fruits and place them in cold water.
Add a small piece of alum to the boiling water for thin-skinned fruits.
Drain fruits on a hair sieve until dry.
Make a rich syrup with white broken loaf sugar and add the drained fruits while boiling.
Cook until fruits are soft to the touch, checking by removing one from the syrup.
Beat the whites of 2 eggs with a little water.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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